Everybody's Favorite New Orleans Chef Launches Besh Box--Plus, Recipes from His New Cookbook

by Lauren Salkeld

on 11/30/13 at 03:00 PM

It seems there's no slowing down for New Orleans-based chef, restaurateur, philanthropist, and Epicurious blog contributor John Besh. In addition to running nine restaurants, Besh just completed his third cookbook, Cooking From the Heart. In this stunning and photo-packed book readers join Besh as he returns to the places and people who shaped his career, telling their stories and remembering the lessons he learned from each. He also shares 140 recipes, many with step-by-step photography.

If his recipes and culinary lessons aren't enough, Besh recently launched Besh Box, a monthly cooking kit subscription. Each box is built around a theme and will feature a curated collection of recipes, ingredients, and tools, with an eye toward spotlighting Besh's favorite local, artisan, and small-batch purveyors. The first box, Holidays from the Heart, includes Inglewood Pecans, vanilla beans, a pastry cutter, a dough scraper, jalapeno seeds from All Good Things Organic Seeds, a cook's towel, and a festive fleur-de-lis Christmas tree ornament, plus Besh's recipes for Apple and Pear Tart with Pecans and Hot Spiced Wine ($55 per box).

Epicurious: In your new cookbook, Cooking From the Heart, you include a vignette on restaurant family meals. For those who aren't familiar, what is family meal and why is it so important?

John Besh: Family meal is the time that restaurant staff partakes in a meal before dinner service begins. Too often, we expect cooks to become great chefs yet they've never been taught to eat. Karl-Josef [one of Besh's mentors], through his family meals, gave his chefs and servers dining experiences each day.

Epi: And how does being a good eater make you a better chef?

JB: You can only develop your palate and your culinary sensibilities through what you eat.

Epi: Do you cook for your family at home? And if so, what do you make?

JB: For the most part, there are the great gumbo stews, étouffées, court-bouillons, and daubes of my childhood. [It's] the food that will teach them who they are and where they come from; food for the soul as well as the body.

Epi: New Orleans has been through so much in the last 10 years. What are your thoughts on the city now and in the future?

JB: New Orleans is no longer on a path of recovery. There are some places that may never be built as they once were, but I truly believe it to be a better city today than before the storm. It's a great city because young, progressive people have rallied to make a difference, and this has had a great effect on everything from schools to a more diversified palate of restaurants.

Epi: In 2011, you founded the John Besh Foundation. What's the foundation's mission and what's the latest news?

JB: The foundation was formed with the intent to sustain this beautiful culture that is only indigenous to New Orleans. We created a fund for low-interest loans to area fishers and farmers, protecting our foodways. Chefs Move, one of our programs, is targeted at our vulnerable minority inner-city youth so that they can enjoy the opportunities and prosperity that many take for granted. To date, we have awarded six fully-paid scholarships and applications open up again for our fourth year in January.